The Invisible Power Struggle with Leah Stokes

Why Is This Happening? The Chris Hayes Podcast

MS NOW, Chris Hayes

Msnbc, The Chris Hayes Podcast, Government, Politics, Chris Hayes, Why Is This Happening?, Withpod, Versant, Ms Now, News, Society & Culture, Versant Media

4.6 • 9.1K Ratings

🗓️ 25 August 2020

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Whether it’s refrigerating your food or turning on the lights or connecting to the Internet, having access to power is what makes modern society possible. And yet, you likely have no choice in which company you get your power from. Whether the service is bad or they lobby against your own policy interests, it doesn’t matter – if you want power, you give them your money. It’s a sweet deal for those companies and, as Leah Stokes recounts in captivating detail, they’ll go to extreme lengths to ensure you remain a captive customer. So, who are these utility companies, how do they work, and what are they doing with your money? And oh, by the way, what will it take to reorganize this sector to transition to clean energy so we can continue to have a habitable planet? Lucky for us, Leah Stokes is an expert in all the above and answers all the questions you never thought to ask but absolutely need to know. RELATED READING: Short Circuiting Policy by Leah Stokes

Transcript

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0:00.0	Because as we've been talking about, you don't get to choose who you buy your electricity
0:05.4	from.
0:06.4	Electricity is an essential service.
0:08.3	So if I don't like that my utility is anti-climate action or is using money from my rates
0:17.0	to fund dark money campaigns, I don't have any exit option.
0:21.8	I can't go choose to buy from somebody else.
0:23.9	So I think that there are real legal questions as to whether or not monopoly utilities with
0:29.6	a guaranteed profit and unlimited funds to spend on politics from a captured customer
0:35.9	race for an essential service should be allowed to spend money in politics at all.
0:41.0	Hello and welcome to Wise is happening with me your host Chris Hayes.
0:52.8	Once again here in the quarantine closet, I think, well I think at some point I'll go back
0:57.4	into a studio or at some point go back into another place that isn't the quarantine closet
1:01.2	now that I've been living solely in the closet for this entire period of time, but I will.
1:07.4	I don't know.
1:08.4	Are people thinking about the fall as like returning normal in some ridiculous way except
1:12.7	it's not normal and it's all going to be screwed up and your kids aren't going to actually
1:15.8	be going to school and so everything is still torn asunder.
1:19.4	Is that just me or is that everyone?
1:20.8	I think that's mostly everyone.
1:22.3	So today I wanted to talk about something I haven't wanted to talk about for a while.
1:26.8	I was trying to think about how to sex up this topic as I was considering it because
1:32.6	it's basically the most important topic and really from when you try to pitch it like
	...

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